


I Got You Babe

by hansbekhart



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Banter, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-15 17:07:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13035633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hansbekhart/pseuds/hansbekhart
Summary: On the third day of the stakeout, Sam Wilson falls into a frozen lake.Bucky doesn’t see it happen; he’s about thirty yards up a hill, face stuffed into the scope of his rifle, keeping an eye on their target across the valley. The wind is up and visibility is poor, which later on will be what Sam blames for wandering across the same goddamn patch of thinner ice Bucky had warned him about the goddamn day before. He hears a dull, muffled crack, and his gut turns icy before he hears Sam yelp and suddenly go silent.“Oh,” Bucky says, dropping his rifle and starting to run, “oh, you would, you son of a bitch.”





	I Got You Babe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [helahler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/helahler/gifts).



> For [Helahler](http://helahler.tumblr.com/), for their generosity in the [Fandom Loves Puerto Rico auction](http://hansbekhart.tumblr.com/post/167338274178/fandom-loves-puerto-rico-update-2)!

On the third day of the stakeout, Sam Wilson falls into a frozen lake.

 

Bucky doesn’t see it happen; he’s about thirty yards up a hill, face stuffed into the scope of his rifle, keeping an eye on their target across the valley. The wind is up and visibility is poor, which later on will be what Sam blames for wandering across the same goddamn patch of thinner ice Bucky had warned him about the goddamn day before. He hears a dull, muffled crack, and his gut turns icy before he hears Sam yelp and suddenly go silent. 

 

“Oh,” Bucky says, dropping his rifle and starting to run, “oh, you  _ would _ , you son of a bitch.”

 

The spot that Sam fell through is still clogged with snow, turning black as it dissolves into the sluggish water below. There’s no splashing, no bobbing head or flailing hands reaching out. “You did this on purpose, you son of a bitch,” Bucky tells the water, and listens hard. No current that could move a body down the mountain - Sam’s got to still be close to where he fell through - that son of a bitch, Bucky _ told him yesterday _ the ice was thin - and then, the satisfying knock of boots against a sheet of ice, about four feet to the left.

 

Bucky knocks back as a warning, gives Sam a second to get out of the way, and then puts his fist through the ice, groping blindly for breathless seconds until he feels the stiff leather of Sam’s coat. Sam surfaces gracelessly, dead weight as Bucky scrambles both of them backwards, off the unsteady ice he can feel groaning under their combined weight.

 

They end wedged in the bank, snow falling in clumps over Bucky’s shoulders and into the collar of his jacket. He exhales plumes into the air, strangely breathless. Sam’s head is tipped backwards over Bucky’s shoulder, ice crystals in his eyelashes and beard. Clear tracks lead from the thin ice, tangled like wires where Bucky’s boots dug in, and Sam’s dragged along behind. Not great, but they’re all the way across the valley from their target, and this side of the mountains are dotted with off-the-gridders: not mission compromising as long as Bucky doesn’t do something stupid, like forget his rifle back up on the ridge or let Sam die of hypothermia out here.

 

“Sam, hey,” Bucky says, and slaps him lightly on one cheek. He’s rewarded with pursed lips and a frown. Sam’s hands come up and make vague swimming motions in the air. Still conscious, then, or close enough that Bucky can risk the half mile trek back to their post before he gets Sam warmed up. 

 

“You weren’t cold enough, huh?” Bucky asks, dragging Sam over his shoulders in a fireman carry. “Didn’t hate snow enough already?” 

 

He’s filling the air; he already knows the answer, since Sam hasn’t shut up about the cold and the snow and the ice since they got out here. He’d gone and plugged up every little crack in their rundown cabin the minute they’d gotten back from the initial surveillance. If Bucky left the door open long enough to stomp the snow off his boots, it was like the world had ended. “Afghanistan got cold,” Bucky had snapped, the first night, but it hadn’t kept Sam from stealing his extra blanket.

 

He can barely remember anyone who’s hated the cold more violently and loudly than Sam Wilson, and he spent the first two decades of his life with a ninety pound asthmatic and most of the rest in Siberia. Beyond the indignity of falling into a lake, Sam’s gonna be  _ pissed _ when he’s clear-headed enough to realize he just gave himself hypothermia.

 

It’s faster to go straight down the side of the mountain, so that’s what Bucky does - even though he has to plow through waist high snow to do it. And he takes the time to kick the door closed behind them before he eases Sam off his shoulders and on to the hearthstone. The fire’s only embers by this point, but the stone feels warm even through the knees of his wet pants, and it’s better than nothing until he can get Sam dry.

 

Sam’s shifting and grumbling by now,  _ just _ conscious enough to clumsily try and punch Bucky as he yanks Sam’s heavy, waterlogged coat off his shoulders. “Nice try,” Bucky tells him, and laughs when Sam slurs, “Try these,” and punches the air again, six inches to the left of Bucky’s chin. 

 

Sam does his best to help, though, with the thermal underneath, and the t-shirt underneath that, and the undershirt underneath  _ that _ . Bucky’s a little afraid that the process will be repeated on Sam’s lower half, but the obstacle course is snow pants-long johns-boxer briefs, and the first two peel off together. Sam had set the cot up pretty close to the fire, so Bucky lifts him up onto it, mother naked. There’s a sweater hanging up on a hook on the mantle, and he swipes the warm cotton over Sam’s skin, drying off any water that’s left over from his sodden clothes.

 

There’s a look on Sam’s face like he’s just starting to figure out what happened to him, which Bucky takes as a good sign even though - just like Bucky figured - there’s thunder clouds gathering in his eyebrows as the sheer injustice of being  _ cold _ also dawns on him. He’s shivering so hard now that the cot is rattling from it.

 

“Gimme a second,” Bucky tells him, and kicks off his boots on the way towards gathering up all the blankets he can find. “I’ll get you warmed up.”

 

Sam makes grumbly noises as Bucky stretches blankets over him, one at a time, tucking each one carefully under Sam’s feet and around his neck. It makes Bucky laugh - he and Steve still don’t talk too much, some valleys just being too deep to cross, but sometimes when he’s feeling alright Bucky does like to think about those Brooklyn days. Steve has never been as disciplined as Sam is; he wouldn’t hold himself back from complaining about a proper course of medical treatment. Wouldn’t hold himself back from just trusting Bucky to manage it. 

 

It’s nice to be trusted.

 

Of course, it could just be the hypothermia. Bucky’s built the fire back up to a respectable height by the time he realizes that the quiet has stretched into  _ too _ quiet territory. When Bucky looks over his shoulder, Sam’s face is slack and his eyes are closed. Bucky’s stomach goes back to twisting itself into knots.

 

Bucky knee-walks to his side. Sam’s eyes open back up, just barely. His eyes almost cross, tracking Bucky’s hand on its way to his forehead, which is cold and a little clammy, but not alarmingly so. The shivering is dissipating, and he’s losing that gray-purple cast to his skin. Bucky lets his shoulders come down from around his ears. He’s seen a few people get killed by exposure and hypothermia over the years. He knew as soon as Sam was out of the water that he probably wasn’t gonna die, but it’s nice to be sure of it.

 

“I’m gonna have to call it in, y’know,” Bucky tells him, in a soft sort of voice. Sam’s eyes narrow. “Gonna have to tell ‘em you fell into a -”

 

“ _ No _ ,” Sam says, forceful as he can when it sounds like his mouth is full of snowballs. He tries again, staring Bucky dead in the face, carefully shaping the words, “ _ Don’t _ tell.”

 

Bucky smothers a laugh in his sleeve, hoping Sam didn’t catch it. His other hand is still pressed against Sam’s forehead. “I gotta,” he tells Sam solemnly. “Cap’s gotta know if you’re in danger, he’s gonna be worri -”

 

Quick as a snake, much quicker than Bucky would’ve expected under the circumstances, Sam’s got a fist around Bucky’s collar. “ _ I know where you sleep _ ,” Sam hisses, trying to haul Bucky closer.

 

“Yeah,” Bucky allows, “next to you.”

 

“Ezzackly, f’k you, ‘m  _ cold _ , I hate this,” Sam mutters thickly, tugging. His aim is poor, and Bucky’s forehead lands gently against his cheekbone. He seems okay with the position, though. His breath is reassuringly warm against Bucky’s ear. He still smells like coffee, and the real maple syrup Bucky’d smuggled up in his gear, wrapped in socks, so Sam could have his damn pancakes in the morning. 

 

“Your treatment plan’s outdated, old man,” Sam murmurs, after a long time. Long enough that Bucky had thought Sam had drifted off, was weighing his chances of sloughing his own wet, soggy clothes off without waking the man. 

 

“Yeah?” he murmurs back. The fire’s high and crackling now, a comforting sound. Bucky feels heavy all over.

 

“Yeah,” Sam says. His eyelashes brush against Bucky’s forehead. “Yeah, you missed the most important step.”

 

“Oh,” Bucky guesses, “hot water bottles.”

 

“Mmmm,” Sam says, and tugs on Bucky’s collar a little more, as if he could get closer. He sounds a little drunk with cold, but he’s barely shivering at all by now. “Not what I was thinking of.”

 

“I dunno,” Bucky says. “I’m pretty sure the Boy Scout manual I grew up with recommends hot water bottles in the groin and armpits.”

 

Sam makes a beautifully frustrated noise. “Take off your clothes and get under the damn blankets, Barnes. I know you don’t like being cold any more than I do.”

 

“That doesn’t seem like medical treatment the Boy Scouts would endorse,” Bucky tells him, even as he leans back and starts wiggling his coat down his shoulders.

 

“I’m gonna throw you in that damn lake,” Sam tells him, very sincerely, but he’s smiling when he says it - or at least, he’s smiling up until Bucky climbs naked under all those warm blankets and presses cold feet up against his shins.

  
  


 

**Author's Note:**

> IT FEELS SUPER NICE TO BE WRITING AGAIN HI EVERYONE HOPE YOU'RE HAVING A GOOD WINTER SEASON


End file.
